okay. so as some of you may already know, i have been studying Visual Art and Contemporary Craft full time since the beginning of this year at the Great Southern Institute of Technology in Albany. i have completed units in drawing, painting, art history, installation, printmaking and digital media. it has been awesome. not only have i learned alot through art practice but i have worked along side some great fellow students and been lucky enough to have very dedicated, talented and awesome lecturers.
every wednesday i have been participating in a full day of printmaking.
what can i say?
this has changed the way i look at EVERYTHING. i immediately fell in love with the entire printmaking process.
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| "vintage dress" intaglio print |
we started out with mono printing, moved on to making lino prints, then intaglio and collograph work. WOW. the process of hand drawing an image and carving/etching was something i found very therapeutic. but. it was once the ink was applied that the real magic began.
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| "dragonfly" intaglio print |
what i found SO exciting was placing my plate (all inked up) into the press and savouring the anticipation whilst hand rolling it through the beautiful vintage press and awaiting the result once it came out the other end as i lifted the paper off to reveal the freshly produced print. MAGIC.
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| "dragonfly" intaglio print on tissue over mono printed background |
i also really loved the energy that came from working in a class environment for printmaking. seeing the gorgeous colours everyone was mixing to apply to their plates. watching others work steadily on their work and seeing the fabulous, beautiful, detailed and exciting prints that were produced. we were all sharing a real sense of achievement.
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| "artichoke" intaglio print |
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| "artichoke 2" intaglio print |
these two images above are of my "artichoke" intaglio prints. they are my favourites. i have also gone a little further with these. i scanned my images and played with them in my digital media class to enhance/change some colours. then i printed them out onto archival quality paper and i have made a new range of greeting card and gift tages incorporating this new design.
i think this is what i was born to do, to take my original work and use it to create beautiful cards and pieces anyone can afford. that way i get to create the prints/paintings, people can purchase the originals, but the images can live on as an edited version of the original piece for others to enjoy. sounds good to me. what do you think of that idea??
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| "artichoke" series of handmade cards |
below are images of my collograph work. the top image is my plate that i made from a piece of cardboard. i glued silk, lace, fibres and ribbon onto the card and then sealed it several times with shellac. this enabled me to use the plate for printing as the dried and "shellaced" (is that even a word?) plate would now be able to be inked up without absorbing any of the said ink.
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| collograph plate |
this first print is an example from my first run using the plate above. i love the denim-look i have achieved by using this great ink colour in combination with the textures i had on my plate.
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| collograph print in denim blue |
here is a black and white version of the collograph print. i am still not sure which way around i like it...
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| "press" collograph print in black |
and here is my favourite collograph image using a variety of colours. i can just imagine this printed up onto canvas to make a beautiful cushion. the possibilities are endless !!
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| "press" collograph print in a variety of colours |
who knew life could be this beautiful ♥
